


The Fairy Bridegroom

by WhiteRoseRed



Series: RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26060308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteRoseRed/pseuds/WhiteRoseRed
Summary: A girl's life is saved by the prince who loves her.This is a *bonus* story that was never posted on Twitter, because nine is a fairytale number. Enjoy! This is dedicated and gifted to all of the special writers who give me so much encouragement and lift me up every time I need it.
Series: RedRoseWhite's Twitfic Fairytales [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888828
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	The Fairy Bridegroom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Denzer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denzer/gifts), [theresonatinglight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theresonatinglight/gifts), [van1lla_v1lla1n](https://archiveofourown.org/users/van1lla_v1lla1n/gifts), [pinehutch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinehutch/gifts), [VerdantVulpus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantVulpus/gifts), [quamquam20](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quamquam20/gifts), [DarkMage13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkMage13/gifts), [nixcomix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nixcomix/gifts), [theaberrantwritergirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theaberrantwritergirl/gifts), [QueenOfCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/gifts), [dyadinbloom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyadinbloom/gifts), [Zabeta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabeta/gifts), [ayrtonwilbury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayrtonwilbury/gifts).



[](https://imgbb.com/)

A girl’s mother died and left her alone. She chopped the wood and drew water from the well by herself. She milked the goat and gathered the dandelions to make wine, and said her prayers and made crowns from the flowers that grew in the garden. One day, as she walked her traplines, checking her snares for squirrels to eat, she saw a stag watching her. His eyes held centuries and there were garlands draped across his antlers. With a rustling of the ferns, a small grey rabbit crossed her path, and the stag disappeared. 

Autumn came and the girl spent hours at a boiling pot, pickling and preserving the harvest. She made rabbit jerky and salt fish. She gathered bundles and bundles of kindling and twigs to prepare the hearth for the coming winter. On the day after All Soul’s Night, she saw the stag again. He approached the yard as she worked the crank on her apple-press, crushing fruit into cider. He bowed to her and placed one hoof on the press, helping her to get the last of the apple from its must. His antlers were magnificent, bronze and wreathed in acorns, with oak-leaves of crimson and gold. 

In the winter, the girl was well-fed. She went to the root-cellar to get some turnips for dinner, and when she gathered some dried herbs hanging overhead, the hobnail scraped her hand. The next day, it was hot, red, and sore. The day after that, the redness crept along her veins. Her palm felt too tight for her finger-bones. She let the hearth burn lower, because she was so very hot. She took two gold coins from her coin-box to pay the village physician, put on her cloak, and went outside. 

The snow was heavy and wet, and it had felled a rotten oak across the path from her cottage to the village. She was feverish and tired and had no strength to climb it. She lay down on the pristine white ground and felt the warmth leave her body as it turned the snowflakes to water that encased her hair. Then, true warmth swept across her face as the stag came and nuzzled her cheek. She reached out to touch the holly on his antlers, and gripped them as he helped her stand, then bowed graciously a second time, and kept his neck lowered, as if he wanted her to ride him. 

The stag carried her, not to the village, but deeper into the wood. They came to a clearing of oak trees, and in the centre, there was a ring of toadstools, and the grass was lush, and green. Without hesitation, he carried her into the ring, and suddenly the world around her was transformed. She was no longer riding a stag through the wintry wood, but standing in a summertime clearing, in the company of a fairy prince. He grasped her hand gently and smiled at her, with eyes that contained centuries. In that moment, she knew she was made for him. 

“Come,” he said “I will bring you to my father, to be healed.”

The fairy king wore an oaken crown and his beard reached his knees, glossy and red. He sat on a throne woven from willow and marsh marigold, and rose as his son approached. 

“Father, I have brought you my mortal love. She is dying from blood-sickness. Please heal her, so that I may take her as my wife.”

“Fairies cannot trifle with mortals who do not pay tribute, child,” the king said. 

“I have gold,” said the girl. “I have goat’s milk and cider and butter and preserved plums, and a prayer-book from my mother, and in the spring my garden is a riot of flowers.”

“I have no need of those things,” the fairy king said. “Give me your heart.”

And because the girl lived alone and had survived for so long without love, she knew she could give up her heart. She nodded her assent, and the fairy king approached her. He smelled of midsummer bonfires and the deepest mud of the marsh at the equinox. He held up his hand and she laid her sickly palm in his, and slowly she felt him draw the poison from her blood. The prince watched as she suddenly twisted, bent and retched, and her heart came up her throat and out her mouth. The king picked it up from the ground while the girl gasped at this magic. Then he turned and handed it to his son. 

“You called this woman your love, and she has your heart,” He said. “Now you have hers. Go forth, pride of my life and joy of my eye, and be faithful to one another for all of your days.”

And he married them to one another, soul to soul, gesturing with his thorny scepter.

With that, the prince and the girl returned to her cottage. Her heart was kept in a jar in the root-cellar, and once they had lived in the cottage for four-score years, they brought it with them to the ring of toadstools, and passed into Fairyland to complete the tale of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to imagine that these fairytales are the stories that the original character Cerryn from my Star Wars fic, [Sweetness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748004/chapters/57035197), would have in the books in her room.


End file.
